In a piece at New York Magazine Andrew Sullivan remarks on the same David Reich op-ed I did last week:
In some ways, this is just a replay of the broader liberal-conservative argument. Leftists tend to believe that all inequality is created; liberals tend to believe we can constantly improve the world in every generation, forever perfecting our societies. Rightists believe that human nature is utterly unchanging; conservatives tend to see the world as less plastic than liberals, and attempts to remake it wholesale dangerous and often counterproductive. I think of myself as moderately conservative. It’s both undeniable to me that much human progress has occurred, especially on race, gender, and sexual orientation; and yet I’m suspicious of the idea that our core nature can be remade or denied. I completely respect the role of liberals in countering this. It’s their role. I think the genius of the West lies in having all these strands in our politics competing with one another.
and
I know this is a touchy, fraught, difficult subject. I completely understand the reluctance to discuss it, and the hideous history of similar ideas in the past. But when people seeking the truth are immediately targeted for abuse and stigma, it matters. When genetics are in a golden age, when neuroscience is maturing as a discipline, and when the truth about these things will emerge soon enough, it matters that we establish a liberalism that is immune to such genetic revelations, that can strive for equality of opportunity, and can affirm the moral and civic equality of every human being on the planet. Liberalism has never promised equality of outcomes, merely equality of rights. It’s a procedural political philosophy rooted in means, not a substantive one justified by achieving certain ends.
That liberalism is integral to our future as a free society — and it should not falsely be made contingent on something that can be empirically disproven. It must allow for the truth of genetics to be embraced, while drawing the firmest of lines against any moral or political abuse of it. When that classical liberalism is tarred as inherently racist because it cannot guarantee equality of outcomes, and when scientific research is under attack for revealing the fuller truth about our world, we are in deep trouble. Because we are robbing liberalism of the knowledge and the moderation it will soon desperately need to defend itself.
I think he’s beating a very nearly literally dead horse. The ideas that have informed American politics since the end of World War II are just about played out and what have replaced them have little intellectual support.
Liberals are now over 80 or deceased. Those who used to be called conservatives and are now called paleocons are mostly in their 70s or dead. Bernie Sanders’s politics really isn’t much like that of Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale at all. Donald Trump no more resembles William F. Buckley than I do the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion. Somewhat less so, actually.
There is no progressive equivalent of Walter Lippmann or Pat Moynihan any more than there is a modern conservative equivalent of William F. Buckley or Milton Friedman. Bill Kristol does not have the intellectual heft his father did.
What has replaced debate in our public discourse are quips, one-liners, memes, tropes, and jibes.
He’s beating a dead horse, but I appreciate the effort because he’s one of the few who continues to do so. I think what passes for politics among elitists needs to be opposed from any quarter.
I forget if I got the link here or somewhere else, but his essay on the #metoo movement is in a similar vein.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/sullivan-metoo-must-choose-between-reality-and-ideology.html
Sullivan’s a terrible writer and a racist, but he does seem to be aware that the ‘truth about these things’ is not due to arrive. If genetics is going to prove there’s a reason for there being a gap on IQ tests other than racism, it will. But it won’t because there’s nothing to the gap other than racism. That’s why he’s whining and crying, which is pathetic. He knows the game of getting real science to back up his mindless racism and imperialism is finished.
I think what passes for politics among elitists needs to be opposed from any quarter.
He’s smugly asserting, on paper, at least, that African-Americans are genetically inferior to white people.
MM,
He makes no such assertion.
Furthermore “difference” does not mean “inferior.”
The ancestors of East Asians, Europeans, West Africans and Australians were, until recently, almost completely isolated from one another for 40,000 years or longer, which is more than sufficient time for the forces of evolution to work.†Which means to say that the differences could be (and actually are) substantial.
This will lead to subtle variations in human brains, and thereby differences in intelligence tests, which will affect social and economic outcomes in the aggregate in a multiracial, capitalist, post-industrial society.
He makes that exact assertion.
MM,
Again, saying there might be differences on IQ tests between various groups is not “asserting African-Americans are genetically inferior to white people.” This is especially true since the racial categorizations used in America given our history have no scientific basis and our unique to our experience.
And we haven’t even discussed the applicability and bias in IQ tests yet.
our=are
Andy,
He says ‘this will lead to’ with this being the 40,000 years of separation in which evolution created differences and to being subtle variations in human brains that will affect social and economic outcomes.
It’s pretty simple.
And yes IQ tests are questionable. The rise in scores says point blank that the test is teachable. I.e. evolution can not have worked in a generation to increase average ‘g’ or whatever one wants to call it. The Klein article in Vox points out that Murray back in the 70s thought that environmental effects on IQ were basically solved re: the racial divide, which is downright idiotic and totally disproven.
More interestingly, Sullivan in his ‘genius of the West’ cliched mind just naturally assumes that within this supposed 40K years of separation evolution would have created differences that end up being reflected with IQ tests. This begs so many questions.
Intelligence itself is subjective. I doubt it can be measured. My wife can’t do math and doesn’t care, but she reads my face like a book, and has a street map in her mind like Garmin.
Sultan’s writing skills are pretty good. You may nutlike his content, but he is a good writer. Racist? Wow! Don’t see it.
Steve
MM,
“He says ‘this will lead to’ ”
That paragraph and the one before it is Sullivan summarizing Reich’s argument. How you get from there to conclude that Sullivan is actually asserting that black people are genetically inferior to white people is not exactly clear. But people can read it for themselves and form their own conclusions.
The bigger point is about genetic influences on cognitive ability generally. Research may show that there are genetically-based cognitive differences across various groups (however you define them). It’s a completely legitimate area of research which should not be quashed because some people’s worldview and politics revolves around the blank slate theory.
Andy,
He supports the argument, which is that there is a genetic cause for social and economic outcomes in relationship to race. How is that not saying that black people are inferior?
Anyway, I suspect that Reich’s book is about mundane topics like the probability of getting prostate cancer, but with ‘cognitive ability’ worked in so that it can get publicity. I believe that there’s little reason to think that cognitive ability differs, simply because the phenomenological environments humans were in for tens of thousands of years were relatively similar. Social Darwinism was always something that mediocre dickheads flocked to because they were amazed at the incredibly minor difference rhythmic tribal music and Beethoven. Someone like Sullivan, too dumb to enjoy the late Beethoven or rhythmic tribal music, just enjoys being a dickhead, because that’s all he has.
“He supports the argument, which is that there is a genetic cause for social and economic outcomes in relationship to race. How is that not saying that black people are inferior?”
What he actually says and your interpretation of what you think he means are two different things.
“I suspect that Reich’s book”
I haven’t read his book either, so I won’t speculate on it.
But I have followed genetic research for the past few years and more and more things we thought were “nurture” turn out to have a “nature” component as well. It seems really unlikely that the cognitive domain would be uniquely exempted.
So what is he saying then?
@Andy
Do you realize what you are now?
I thought it was pretty clear. He is mostly reacting to the hostility of Ezra Klein and others against research that shows there is probably a genetic component to IQ. He starts with this:
“My own brilliant conclusion: Group differences in IQ are indeed explicable through both environmental and genetic factors and we don’t yet know quite what the balance is….My assumption, in other words, is not Klein’s [Klein’s assumption is that genetics are irrelevant]. I assume that this is an open question. Klein wants us to assume it’s closed.”
Later on:
“Klein cannot seem to hold the following two thoughts in his brain at the same time: that past racism and sexism are foul, disgusting, and have wrought enormous damage and pain and that unavoidable natural differences between races and genders can still exist.”
and concludes with:
“I know this is a touchy, fraught, difficult subject. I completely understand the reluctance to discuss it, and the hideous history of similar ideas in the past. But when people seeking the truth are immediately targeted for abuse and stigma, it matters. When genetics are in a golden age, when neuroscience is maturing as a discipline, and when the truth about these things will emerge soon enough, it matters that we establish a liberalism that is immune to such genetic revelations, that can strive for equality of opportunity, and can affirm the moral and civic equality of every human being on the planet. ”
His essay isn’t about the research per se – he defers to scientists on that – but about those who are hostile to even discussing a genetic component to IQ. He’s arguing that impugning the motives of people who are doing this kind of genetic research, or those writing about it, is wrong and ultimately futile. He’s pointing out that Klein and others who continue to insist that genes are irrelevant are basically putting their heads in the sand and making the obvious point that the science will continue to progress and make Klein’s position even less tenable than it already is.
“Do you realize what you are now?”
I’m “white,” so I’m probably a racist?
Andy,
As Klein’s article makes clear, there is a great deal of scientific confusion about the black-white gap in IQ. His (Klein’s) article is an honest examination in Vox-style prose of the debate. No one’s motives are impugned. The worst thing he says (other than pointing to Murray’s disinterest as a social science in the history of racism in America) is that Murray has a strange innocence regarding the reaction his works receives.
And its interesting that Sullivan is complaining about how terrible the forces of truth and right are being treated when he’s doing with a paid gig in New York Magazine, and he links to an article in the New York Times about how genetic research is going to change everything. It doesn’t seem to me a mark of confidence to be talking about how oppressed genetics is if its not really being oppressed.
Reich’s lab is in possession of probably the largest collection of ancient DNA and its facilities have been designed to start generating data and analysis at a rapid scale. Depending on your interest in the science, the book is either a prelude or a warning shot. It seems like the first stage will involve the architecture of population clusters.